Tuesday, June 21, 2016

The two most prestigious wrestling titles in American history
(That I own... besides maybe the YouTube Belt)

I love entertaining people. It's what I
do. From radio, to stand-up comedy, to touring as a professional
musician, acting and beyond, I have made my livelihood... for most of
my life, by entertaining people. I liked every creative avenue...
but... I get bored easily. I like to conquer things and then move on.
It's a curse. But then... there was pro wrestling. I can't explain
why, but this was the one creative outlet that sated my entertainment
appetite holistically. It has also been the hardest for me to
master... because I haven't mastered it yet... and I'm not even
close. I never will be close. As my body ages, I know my in ring
career has seen its better days. Even today, as I curled a 45 lb.
dumbbell, my right knee popped, making me almost collapse to the
floor. My first thought was... five years from now I would have head
butted the secretary next to me (it's a type of desk, not a mini
skirt wearing, note taker).

I like wrestling because I can grab my boobs

aggressively at a real life drag queen and get
paid to do it

Pro wrestling in my area is in a lull.
Most of my friends are either too old to wrestle, decided to move on
to new things, or have been ostracized by pro wrestling's politics
and are reduced to wrestling at campgrounds and ball fields in the
direct sun in front of 45 people. Angles, promos, vignettes,
memorable events, rivalries, and the mass appeal of the local sport
seems to be all but a waning memory nowadays... with very few
exceptions. So as I have been taking a calculated rest, only
accepting out of state bookings that make fiscal sense, I have been
looking back nostalgically at my experiences in the sport. One thing
in particular that I have often took for granted: How the hell do I
have Hulk Hogan's missing title sitting on my bookshelf?

In 2013, I received a phone call from a
casual friend. He, himself, was an odd fixture in the sport of
wrestling. He was definitely a smart guy and very friendly, and he
always seemed to be in the middle of very interesting drama. We
both knew a fellow wrestling personality, one that almost everyone
despised. A name many people recognize in East Tennessee: Terry
Landell.

You see... Terry Landell, for better or
worse, has been the one constant in East Tennessee wrestling since the glory days of Ron and Don Wright,
Whitey Caldwell, and then later Southeastern and Continental faded
away. And after being in this sport for almost ten years, I have
realized that Terry is as much of a genius as he is a complete moron.
Giving Terry any sort of credit is almost blasphemy with the boys
around here. You see, between his painfully, unintentionally
hilarious call in shows... where he squints and struggles to see what
is going on his cellphone on live TV, and where almost seemingly out
of boredom, he stands up and nonsensically yells “WHO'S YOUR
DADDY??”, and the fact that he runs shows in abandoned
parking lots and dumps, he has become a joke, and in my opinion, hurt
the sport in the eyes of potential fans. He even changed his name to
get himself over more by pretending he was related to Nature Boy
Buddy Landel. From what I understand Buddy never liked this. And like
the buffoon Terry is... he even MISSPELLED the name Landell.

To win you over more, there is Terry's
behavior: He also runs charity shows, like Toys for Tots, and takes
the best stuff for his own personal uses. Or, he will set up across
the street in a parking lot, running free matches against people
trying to have a wrestling show to raise money for Junior diabetes...
just to be a dick and to cost them money. But as much as we hate him,
he has figured out some things about the sport that most wayfaring
wrestlers never quite figure out: how to make real money. He has
figured out ways to hustle bail bond companies to pay for his pretty
poorly thought out wrestling shows. So, he actually earns a pretty
good living at running shows. Meanwhile, most people I know are lucky
to break even. Also, he understands the “Law of Celebrity”.
Everyone who has ever drawn a check from the government that lives in
Knoxville knows Terry Landell... and they hate him... real heat...
and there is a certain power in that and he loves it. But sometimes
that bites him in the butt... like this story.

How does this all apply to this belt?
Here's how...

Going back to the phone call, my friend told me this: “Hey, there is this old belt a friend of mine
found... and we don't know what it is. It’s pretty beat up, and it
looks like there is some water damage to it. We think it's the belt
that Ronnie Garvin threw off of the Henley Street Bridge... so it’s
got some history to it. Terry Landell offered to pay him $250 for it,
and if his cheap ass is willing to pay that much, it has to be worth
a lot more.”

Intriguing, right?

My friend continued, “The guy asked me who he hated more
than anyone, and that he would rather sell it to an enemy for less
than to Terry himself for $250. I told him Funkmaster V.”

Now Terry and I have never met, but we
both hosted really bad TV call-in shows on cable access at the same
time. He would call in and prank me, or book Cowboy Bob Orton against
a fake Funkmaster V on his shows... to.. I guess... slander me, but I
never really did anything to him. I didn't care about Terry, I had
bigger fish to fry.

Now... I'm a Yankee, so I can spot a
street hustle from a mile away... but I wanted to get one over on
Terry... even if there was a chance that I was the pigeon in this. I
told the guy to come over and he soon would be belt-less. He did...
and he was. I had this crappy looking belt in my house now for less than $250.

Mac MacMurray and the belt

from Hogan's first Knoxville

match he refereed

It was cool but I didn't know what I
had. For years, I asked the old timers in the sport for their
opinions on what I stumbled onto. I was told immediately that it
wasn't the Ronnie Garvin bridge jumping belt. I was told several
times that the belt was probably worthless. You see, wrestlers for
the most part, are degenerates. Most are about making a sweaty
dollar bill over being a decent person any day of the week. So I was
given a lot of misinformation about the belt for years. That was
until one day I reposted the belt as a joke on Facebook.

One of my associates, a belt maker,
wanted to see more.

I was quickly given an education about
belts. For one, as I said... most wrestlers and promoters are degenerates and that also means cheap. Championship belts were used until they totally looked like
complete crap and could no longer be seen on TV... because it would
look like something no one in their right mind would want, so why
fight over it? So this accounts for the belt's poor condition. There
were also no replica belts in the 70s. If you go to a WWE event
nowadays, every kid has a belt in the stands... and they look pretty
good, to be honest... but back in the 70s, this was unheard of.

See? I didn't lie! Mac, Hogan, and the belt.

So after my associate and his
contemporary in the business looked at the belt, they came to the
conclusion that this is the one belt that Hulk Hogan held, that has
been missing for years and years: One of the Southeastern Heavyweight
Championship belts based out of Knoxville, Tennessee. Surprisingly
enough to the casual fan, Hogan never won many belts, especially for
being the face of the sport for so long. During much of his career he
was the WWF champion for years and never lost a title fight. And he
officially only held two championships that were not World
championships... this being one of them.

Cool right? Guess what is cooler?
Kamala, Four Horseman Ole Anderson, Dennis Condrey of the Midnight
Express and a cavalcade of other wrestling heroes held this belt. And who
owned this Knoxville promotion (and technically the title belt) at
the time? Have you ever heard of Black Jack Mulligan and Nature Boy
Ric Flair???

So it looks like I got one over on my
old pal Terry. I used to lie and tell everyone that the guy who found
it gave this belt to me for free to spite Terry, so that it would
hopefully get back to old Boobs Landell. But now that I know what I know, I am
not ashamed to say that I actually paid for it.

So... as cool as owning a piece of
history like this is... I am eventually going to sell the thing to
someone who would appreciate it more. But it won't be for $250 and it
won't be to Terry Landell. Maybe it will be you! But more than
likely, I hear Japanese ebay calling... But at the end of the day,
I'm glad we found this really cool piece of history and hopefully
someone can enjoy it for years and years...

As for me... I'm going to go record a
song about how AJ Gann's ex-wife was molested by a ghost.... and she
liked it.

Monday, June 20, 2016

Ive been a little lazy on promoting my stuff lately... I was on "Still the King" on CMT with Jocephus Hudson last Sunday, I had a local stand up comedy gig, and I will be wrestling in Chicago and Delaware coming up this summer. BUT! I will not be lazy about my 13 year old kid and her award-winning artwork... she will be debuting several new prints for sale at the Knoxville Fanboy at Mike Hermann's booth! Come by and buy something... she really is amazin' and will be there all three daze!!! https://www.facebook.com/events/515273115345771/